Coleus is often used in containers and flowerbeds for leaf color and shape. Dr. Dave Clark, University of Florida shows how breeders achieve the unique colors in his video. See link in “Dibbles and Bits.”
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Plant Exchange Blog 
The link to the video of coleus breeders is found in “Dibbles and Bits”
http://yankton.net/articles/2012/07/05/river_city/doc4ff64b5f7d5d9115122100.txt
I enjoyed the video and seeing so many different colors on the plants. But I wonder how they actually combine two plants.
A gardener might harvest seed from a plant they like. Next season the gardener plants the seeds from this plant and notices slight differences among the plants as they grow and mature even though all the plants have the same growing conditions. According to the gardener’s preferences, one may pick a new plant to harvest seed or take vegetative cuttings from the favorite plant. From seed, one may get some offspring seed with the desired preferences. If the gardener takes cuttings from the favorite plant, each cutting will grow to have the same desired preferences as the parent. This method is one of the ways to get predictable new plants with desired preferences.